Talk:Dread/@comment-175.136.179.9-20130724020657/@comment-13117751-20130724160103
The widespread giveaway of the snipetron vandal combined with the enemy rework so that everything is a significantly higher level more or less put the dread to rest, in my opinion. Really building a bow to use over the snipetron vandal is all about personal preference. Against enemies higher than level ~50 you'll begin to notice differences due to the dread's lack of armor ignore (unlike its cousin the Paris, which DOES ignore armor) and by level ~100 or so you'll begin wishing you were using something else. As a rifle, the snipetron has a more consistent rate of fire than the dread (this is, of course, comparing the snipetron's 'normal' shot to the dread's charged shot)...and even if one was snap-firing with the dread they only fire ever-so-slightly faster at the cost of doing less than half the damage of the snipetron vandal. All in all, the snipetron vandal is a more versatile weapon than the dread and will outclass it at higher-end content. However, I won't present only one side of it; the Dread has its shortcomings but has significant advantages in a few places. Since you'll pretty much only see level 100+ enemies in high-end defence missions, in most cases a Dread in the hands of a good player familiar with bows can perform better than a snipetron vandal in specifically one category: Killing light infested. As the snipetron vandal fires rounds that are inherently armor piercing "elements", the snipetron's base damage hit gets cut in half against light infested (its mod properties, however, do not...but that's another story and I'll leave it out of this comparison since I'm assuming you would be using the same damage mods on your dread and snipetron vandal). The dread, on the other hand, does triple damage against them. So, for missions where the bulk of your enemies will be level 1--70'ish light infested (i.e. crawlers / chargers / runners / leapers) the dread is a perfectly viable weapon. The only problematic spots will be when you run into ancients. The snipetron vandal, with its armor piercing damage, suffers no base damage losses against the ancients and you can shoot more or less anywhere in their bodies and have no damage reduction (and of course, shooting them in the head grants you bonuses). The dread user, on the other hand, will be forced to aim at their weak points...namely their feet / lower arm. This shouldn't be too difficult for an experienced marksman but the snipetron is simply "easier to use" in this instance. I'll go ahead and close this off by saying this summary: In the end it'll come down to personal preference. The snipetron will outperform the dread in almost every scenario and will DEFINITELy do better at high-end, difficult content. The dread will outperform the snipetron at killing off light infested at medium and below content...and that's about it. At the base of your decision though should also be whether or not you like bows and their stealth / handling aspects. If you like the feel of bows, I would say by all means, go for it. It'll be more fun for you and after all that's what everyone's after.